Labourism and the Common Good: Australia’s Democratic Post-Liberal Tradition

Contemporary debates about post-liberalism are often framed as a reaction against the excesses of neoliberalism and the cultural individualism of the late liberal settlement. Calls to recover the common good, re-embed markets within society, restore the dignity of work, and rebuild institutions of belonging have gained traction across both the political left and right. This paper argues that Australia need not import these ideas from Britain, Europe or the United States because it already possesses a distinctive democratic post-liberal tradition: labourism.

Drawing on Australia’s political history, Dr Dyrenfurth argues that labourism has long understood freedom not as radical individual autonomy but as something sustained by families, unions, faith communities, voluntary associations and the nation itself. Far from being merely an economic movement concerned with wages and redistribution, labourism advanced a moral vision rooted in reciprocity, obligation and the common good. Religious traditions—particularly Nonconformist Protestantism, Christian socialism and Catholic social teaching—played an important role in shaping this ethical inheritance.

Speaker: Dr Nick Dyrenfurth

Executive Director, John Curtin Research Centre,
Monash University,
Regular Contributor, The Australian.

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